Ed McBain: See Them Die

He recognized in an instant that Miranda was absolutely right. Moreover, if Carella were in his position, in this apartment, surrounded by policemen, facing either a lifelong jail sentence or death in the electric chair, he would undoubtedly react in exactly the way that Miranda was reacting. He would try to get out of that apartment by fair means or foul. He would try to escape.

"Well..." he said, and he fell silent.

The two men faced each other.

"You see what I mean, Father?"

"Well..."

Miranda shrugged. The apartment was silent.

"So ... so I got to use you as a shield, Father. They won't shoot if I come out with you in front of me."

"Suppose they refuse to recognize ..."

"Oh, they won't. They won't try nothing. I'll tell them I'll shoot you if they try anything."

"And if they should try something? Will you shoot me, Pepe?"

Pepe Miranda frowned.

"Will you, Pepe?"

After a long while he said, "I got to get out of this apartment, Father. I got to get out of here!"

There were two patrolmen on either side of the stoop. Captain Frick had chosen them from his ranks, had chosen four of his best shots, and then they had gone to Lieutenant Byrnes for their instructions. Their instructions were simple. Shoot to kill.

And so they waited on either side of the doorway now, four marksmen with their pistols drawn, waiting for something to happen.

From the first-floor windows of the tenement, Miranda's voice came.

"Lieutenant!"

"Yes?"

"This is Miranda! I've got the priest. I'm coming out."

"What do you mean, Miranda? You're giving up?"

"Giving up, my ass! The priest is coming out with me. If you've got any cops in the hallway, you'd better get them out now. You hear me?"

"It's gonna work," Parker whispered to Byrnes.

"There are no policemen in the hallway, Miranda."

"There better not be. I want a clear path when I come out. This priest is staying with me all the way. Anybody so much as looks cockeyed at me, the priest gets it."

"I thought you made a promise, Miranda."

"Don't make me laugh! I'm coming out."

Byrnes put down the megaphone and quickly drew his revolver. He turned slightly, so that his body hid the revolver which hung in his hand alongside his right thigh. Parker drew his gun, too, and then looked around for a good spot from which to fire. Behind the squad car? No, no. There! There was a place! The packing crate over there. He pushed his way through the crowd and climbed onto the crate. He checked the chambers of his .38, wiped his upper lip, and then faced the doorway. The street was very silent now. Upstairs, inside the building, they could hear a door slamming.

"Any cops in the hallway?" Miranda shouted. "Any cops here?"

There was no answer. Standing, watching the doorway, watching the patrolmen flanking the stoop, Byrnes thought, All he has to do is turn his head. He'll see the patrolmen, and he'll put a bullet in Steve's back. That's all he has to do. Patiently, Byrnes held his breath.

"I got the priest," Miranda shouted from the hallway. "Don't try nothing, you hear?"

The crowd had turned toward the doorway to the building. They could see nothing beyond the door. The hallway was dark, and the bright sunshine did not reach beyond the flat top step of the stoop.

"Clear a path!" Miranda shouted. "Clear a path, or I'll shoot into the crowd! I don't care who gets hurt!"

The crowd could see a pair of figures in the hallway now, dimly. The priest was almost invisible because of his black cassock, but Miranda could be seen fairly clearly, a short thin man in a white undershirt. They hesitated in the vestibule, and Miranda peered past Carella's shoulder and into the street.

Zip pushed his way through the crowd with Cooch. The street was terribly silent, and he wanted to know why. What the hell was happening? He was angry because they'd been unable to locate China, angry because he wanted this Alfredo Gomez thing to end now, angry because things seemed to be going wrong, and he wanted them to go right. But, in spite of his anger, he was curious. The silence intrigued him. He pushed up to the barricade just as Carella and Miranda came onto the front stoop.

Miranda's eyes flicked the street. He was partially covered by the priest, so that a shot from across the street could not be risked. That left only...

And Miranda turned to look to the left of the stoop.

Carella was ready. He'd been waiting for the movement ever since they'd left the apartment. He'd been wondering where he would look if he were Miranda, and he'd realized that nobody could shoot from the other side of the street, and so any trap would have to be set on this side of the street, any shots would have to come from behind.

So Carella knew that Miranda knew, and he'd been waiting for the sideward movement of Miranda's head because he had further reasoned that Miranda would begin shooting the second he saw the cops on either side of the stoop.

Zip saw the cops the same moment Miranda did. It was too late to shout a warning.

Carella felt Miranda's head and eyes flickering to the left.

Go! he told himself.

He went.

No one said a word. Miranda turned toward Carella in the same instant that Carella threw himself headlong down the flight of steps.

And then the shooting started.

17

"Pepe!" Zip yelled. "Pepe!" But he was too late.

The crossfire was true crossfire. Miranda whirled to the left, and the bullets suddenly smashed into him from the right side of the stoop, spinning him around. He slammed into the railing and fired a shot at the patrolman who seemed closest to him, and then suddenly there were shots on his left, and he realized he was caught in a deadly crossfire, and he ran off the stoop toward where Carella lay sprawled at the foot of the steps. Byrnes began firing from the other side of the street, and Parker began firing from the crate, and then it seemed that every cop on that block had been waiting for just this moment because the street suddenly reverberated with ear-shattering sound as the bullets caromed into the gutter.

He seemed to be bleeding from a dozen places.

The white undershirt seemed to sprout blood like poppies in an instant. His own gun kept bucking in his hand, but there was blood dripping from his face and into his eyes, and he just fired blindly and sort of groped out toward the crowd as if he were reaching for salvation and didn't know whose face held it.

Parker came down off the crate, his service revolver trembling in his hand. The cops on the rooftops stopped firing all at once, and the men behind Miranda stopped firing as he stumbled blindly across the street, moving toward Parker who was similarly drawn toward him. It was almost as if someone had placed two magnetic figures on a long table. They moved toward each other inexorably, Miranda blinded by blood, and Parker drawn into that street by something he would never understand.

Miranda's gun clicked empty, and he looked at Parker in supplication, blood dripping into his eyes and bubbling out of his mouth, the mouth open, the hands limp now, the head twisted to one side like a Christ who had climbed down from the cross.

"Give me a break," Miranda whispered.

And Parker fired.

His shot took Miranda in the throat at close range, nearly ripping away the back of his neck. A fresh blossom of blood erupted, exposing Miranda's windpipe as he staggered forward again. His voice bubbled from his torn throat, a whispered voice that sounded as if it were coming from one of those trick underwater recording chambers, a voice directed only to Parker, a voice that sought out Parker on that spinning red street.

"Can't you ... can't you give me a break?" And again Parker fired. And this time, he kept his finger on the trigger, tightening the pressure each time a slug roared from the barrel of the gun, watching the slugs rip into Miranda, watching Miranda topple into the gutter lifelessly, and then standing over him and pumping bullets into his body until his gun was empty, and then grabbing a gun from the patrolman standing next to him and beginning to fire at the dead Miranda.